A judge ruled Monday that no pair of pants is worth $54 million, rejecting a lawsuit that took a dry cleaner's promise of "Satisfaction Guaranteed" to an extreme.
 

Roy Pearson became a worldwide symbol of legal abuse by seeking jackpot justice from a simple complaint -- that a neighborhood cleaners lost the pants from a new suit and tried to give him a pair that were not his. His claim was based on a strict interpretation of the city's consumer protection law -- which imposes fines of $1,500 per violation, per day -- as well as damages for inconvenience, mental anguish and attorney's fees for representing himself.

"A reasonable consumer would not interpret 'Satisfaction Guaranteed' to mean that a merchant is required to satisfy a customer's unreasonable demands," wrote District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff.

Bartnoff ordered Pearson, an administrative law judge, to pay clerical court costs of about $1,000 to the defendants. A motion to recover their tens of thousands of dollars in attorney fees will be considered later.